


Dummkopf

by bilbobagginshield



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Fluff, Rule 63, Total Fluff, and Silliness, ok can we all just agree that Hermann is a major tsundere?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 23:09:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bilbobagginshield/pseuds/bilbobagginshield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt's mom has been hounding her about being single, like it's an actual thing to be worried about what with the apocalypse really fucking nigh. Seriously, mom? Grandkids? The only thing that will be spawning anytime soon is another kaiju from the Breach. Anyway, Newt sort of tells her that she's dating Hermann, for some reason. Just to get her off her back or whatever. But it doesn't matter, because Hermann totally hates her. And she totally hates Hermann, too...right? Well if Hermann didn't hate her before, she must now after seeing Newt tell her mom they were a thing in the Drift. Newt has never seen Hermann so mad and--oh. </p><p>(I just wanted to try a weird idea I had for a summary. The prompts I based this off of are in the notes at the end.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dummkopf

“—Newt, honey. You’re gonna be 35 soon—“

“Thanks for reminding me, mom. I almost forgot.”

“I want grandkids.”

“Mom.”

“You know, Nancy from across the street has a son. A little older than you, but—“

“ _Mom_ —“

“She also has a daughter.”

Newt sighs in exasperation at the smirk she can practically feel through the phone.

“I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but the world’s kind of in a crisis? Giant alien monsters from another dimension rising up from the sea and all?”

“That doesn’t mean—“

“It means that I’ve got my hands full with kaiju guts, not...kids.”

Newt’s mom gives her the same sigh she always does. The one that means she’s done for now, but not for good. Newt mentally restarts the war clock in her head counting down the days until her mother asks her again.

\----------

“ _Doctor_ Geiszler, I am not sure how many times I need to tell you in order to get it through that incredibly thick skull of yours: keep the kaiju bits on _your_ side.” She brandishes her cane, indicating the tape bisection of the room.

“Well I’m really not sure, _Hermann_. Aren’t you supposed to be the one good with numbers?”

Sometimes Newt isn’t sure if she just likes arguing with Hermann for the sake of it or if she does it to watch her flush pink in anger or to hear her roll her r’s as her accent creeps in. One time she made Hermann so mad that she actually slipped into German to curse at her. She needs to remember what she did to incite that reaction and do it again. Y’know, to test the reproducibility of the experiment. Basic scientific procedure.

Newt watches as Hermann turns back to her chalkboards, fuming and grumbling under her breath. Satisfied with her day’s work, she packs up her specimens and cleans up the bench. But she can’t resist just one more bit of fun. She pulls off her goopy and totally harmless, at this point, gloves and tosses them carelessly over her shoulder. They sail right over the biowaste bin, landing with a satisfying slap just over the line.

As she runs snickering from the room, she swears she can hear Hermann yell _dummkopf_ after her. The smile that cracks her face is so wide it almost hurts.

\----------

“Really, Newt, it wouldn’t hurt you to date—“

15 days before she asks again.

Newt is sick, sick, sick of this conversation. Couldn’t she have some peace? Well, at least in her personal life?

“I’m already seeing someone!”

Her mother is quiet on the other line and Newt thinks that maybe that was it. Maybe she can finally have that peace. Was this all she really needed to do? She should have done this _ages_ ago. And then her mother’s voice explodes on the other end of the line.

“Oh, _Newt_! You should have _told_ me! Oh, who is it? What are they like? Are they smart enough for _meine kleine Doktorin_?”

“It’s Hermann Gottlieb!” She yells into the phone. And _woah_ okay, where did _that_ come from? She could have said anyone and she went with _Hermann_? Silence again on the other line.

“The woman you work with? The one you complain about all the time?”

Well, what was Newt to do now but go along with it?

“Yep. Yes. That Hermann. She’s my girlfriend.” Newt doesn’t want to think about the warmth that blooms in her stomach at the thought, so she very pointedly ignores it.

“Well, I’m sure she’s very... nice. I’m so happy for you, honey! When you get the chance to visit again, you should bring her along and...”

Her mother goes on and on about meeting ‘the girl that makes her daughter happy.’ And Newt hums and yeps and okays in all the right places. All she can think is that while solving this particular problem, she seems to have unearthed a whole new one to fill its place.

\----------

Luckily, there isn’t a lot of time to think about her new issue, seeing as the world is ending and all. I mean, you always need to look at the bright side, right? That was definitely the bright side. That and she didn’t totally scramble her brain Drifting with a kaiju. And what are completely bizarre, out of left-field, newly discovered feelings for your totally stuffy, uptight, sort of adorable mathematician coworker when it looks like you’re about to become kaiju chow, anyway?

Newt refuses to acknowledge that one of the things that flashed across her mind as Otachi’s tentacles flashed in front of her face was that she’d never get the chance to piss Hermann off again.

But now she’s here with an infant kaiju at her feet (and it looks like her hands will be full of baby, wouldn’t her mom love that?) that has a perfectly good brain to Drift with. She tries to focus on that and only that as Hermann makes her way over to her, a small crew toting Newt’s cobbled together Pons in her wake.

“They have two signatures in the breach. _Two_ of them.”

Newt turns away from her and starts to get the systems for the Pons up and running so that she doesn’t have to look at the little crease that forms between Hermann’s brows as she frowns.

“This can’t be right. There should be _three_ Kaijus coming, not two.”

Newt grabs the electrodes and squelches her way up onto Baby Otachi’s back. She wants to snap at Hermann, but instead hammers the electrodes in through kaiju skull and into kaiju brain with gusto.

“I can’t be wrong...”

And that does it for Newt.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Sucks to be wrong, doesn’t it?”

Hermann stares up at her with this look in her eye and Newt sort of maybe has to hold onto an electrode sticking out of Baby Otachi’s head in order not to slip.

“I am not wrong,” Hermann says with conviction, “but there’s only one way to find out, and that’s to do this...”

Hermann marches up to the Pons and starts typing quickly and with fierce determination. Newt, alarmed, slides down Baby Otachi’s side and rushes over to Hermann. She wouldn’t ruin this for her, would she? But before she can do anything at all, Hermann says the one possible thing that could completely short circuit her brain.

“...together. That’s what Jaeger pilots do, share the load of the Drift.”

There’s no way that Newt is gonna let Hermann know that she could mess with her brain more than the neural overload of Drifting solo with a Kaiju, nothing, not even the world ending.

“You sure you want to get your brain so close to _kaiju bits_?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve been preparing me for this all along, throwing entrails all around.”

Newt stares at Hermann. Hermann stares right back, though she can’t keep the tiny smile from twitching the corner of her mouth. The last thing Newt needs right now is to be thinking about Hermann’s mouth, so she jams the squid cap over her head hard enough to knock the thoughts right out.

“Say it with me, then!” She turns to Hermann with a wolfish grin and offers up her closed fist. “We’re gonna own this!”

Hermann fumbles with her hand like she isn’t quite sure how to work it. She finally bumps her knuckles against Newt’s.

“By jove, we are going to own this!”

Newt doesn’t know whether to be exasperated or to find that endearing. So instead of deciding, she grabs the control and prepares to hit the button.

“Neural handshake initiating in three...two...one...”

\----------

In the adrenaline rush that follows the Drift and rushing back to the ‘Dome and watching Team Humans save the day, Newt doesn’t have much time to think about the Drift itself. But now, in the aftermath, she was thinking about it. She had to think about it. Because Hermann was certainly thinking about it.

“You told your _mother_ that we were in a relationship?!”

Newt is certain she’d never heard Hermann so shrill. She’d be proud and put this on her pissing-off-Hermann achievements list right up there with getting her to yell in German, but Newt is actually a little bit scared. Okay, more like sort of verging on frightened. And frantic.

“Look, she’s been on me a lot about being single, and to get her off my back abou—“

“You told your mother that we were in a relationship to get her off your back.” Hermann scowls at Newt with a ferocity she didn’t think possible. “Please, don’t stop to think about how you sully my name...”

Whatever else Hermann says, Newt doesn’t hear it. Because all she really hears is _you hurt me_. Hermann doesn’t have to actually say it. They were in the Drift together. And now that Newt has the time to process it, she realises a whole lot that she has apparently missed. Confusion and pangs of want and quickly buried fondness. Everything that Newt thought was her own— Hermann’s, too. Hermann’s words being more biting than usual lately? Exactly the same reason Newt’s had been. What else were you supposed to do when you thought that the person you have feelings for hates you?

“... you need to set this straight _immediately_ , Newton, or— _mmphh!_ ”

Newt always thought that shutting people up by kissing them was sort of lame, but it’s effectiveness in pissing Hermann off more definitely gave it some merit. Hermann pulls away with an angry huff.

“ _What_ was _that_?”

“You said my name.”

“What?”

“My name. You called me Newton and not Dr. Geiszler.”

“I don’t see—“

“It’s okay, Hermann. I was in your head, I _know_. I know how you feel.”

This only seems to annoy Hermann even more.

“That doesn’t mean _anything_ —“

“It’s okay because I feel the same.”

Silence.

“C’mon, you were in my head, too. I know you saw it. I mean, you saw me telling my mom that we were in a relationship. You can’t be selective about admitting what you’ve seen.”

More silence. Newt sighs.

“Listen, I get it. Nothing has to change, we can still just—“

“No!” Hermann flushes pink and isn’t this just a glorious day for Newt’s list? Now all she needs to do is to get her to yell in German. Hermann coughs and looks away from Newt. “I didn’t say that.”

Newt stares at the woman in front of her, flushed with embarrassment and wearing a filthy parka at least three sizes too big on her and absolutely perfect. Newt reaches out and cups Hermann’s angular cheek in her hand.

“Maybe we can try this again. Y’know, to test the reproducibility of the experiment. Basic scientific procedure.”

Hermann scoffs but looks at Newt with something like fondness in her eyes. Newt continues.

“Except maybe this time we could do it...”

“Together,” Hermann finishes.

Newt draws her down to her lips. This is slower and warmer and everything that Newt never knew she wanted. It’s almost like Drifting again, in its own, much nicer way. They pull away for breath. Hermann rests her forehead against Newt’s and gives Newt what she thinks may be the first genuine smile that’s ever come her way. Hermann huffs out a fond laugh and cups Newt’s face between her hands.

“ _Dummkopf_.”

Newt doesn’t think she’s ever been so happy to be an idiot. 

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by vexingly-verbose and sparklyslug on tumblr who had these prompts, respectively:  
> 1\. "Newt tells her mum Hermann’s her girlfriend to stop matchmaking at family events. Eventually Hermann gets wind of this bit of news…"  
> 2\. "Fem!herman and fem!newt, dealing with repercussions of the drift (pretending shared memories didn’t happen? Wanting to find out more about glimpsed memories? Totally up to you)"
> 
> Also, as far as I can tell, _dummkopf_ means idiot or thick-headed in German. And _meine kleine Doktor_ means my little Doctor. I checked a few different sources that confirmed it, but I don't know a word of German, so these could be wrong. If I am, please correct me!
> 
> Some of the dialogue I used came directly from the novelization. Some is word-for-word while others are close enough with just a few tweaks.


End file.
